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Last week, I wrote a story about my recent stay at the Hilton Seattle Downtown.  While my room was fine and things were fine, I was a little upset that I didn’t get an upgrade.hilton-logo

(SEE ALSO: I’m p****d I didn’t get upgraded)

I realized after writing the post that it wasn’t so much a lack of an upgrade that was bothering me, but just my unmet expectations.  It was also frustrating that the check-in staff didn’t at least mention something about it – something along the lines of “Thank you for being a Diamond member Mr. Miller.  We looked to upgrade you but we are completely full today so we were not able to accommodate you”.  Even something like that would have been welcome.

Emailing Hilton customer service

Over on the Points With a Crew Slack channel, folks suggested I at least write in to Hilton and let them know about it, with the hopes of training check-in staff for future bookings, so I did.

A day later, I got a response

Thank you for contacting Hilton Guest Assistance. My name is <redacted>. It will be my pleasure to assist with your concerns from your recent stay at the Hilton Seattle WA

Please accept our sincerest apologies for any aggravation or inconvenience experienced due to your Hilton HHonors DIAMOND benefits concerns.

We are constantly monitoring the performance of all the hotels in the Hilton Portfolio of Brands and measuring them against high service and quality standards. Comments from our guests enable us to continually improve and exceed those standards. Please be confident that we will follow-up on the points you have outlined to avoid recurrence.

Or in other words….. here is this form letter that could have been sent to anyone and shows no proof that anyone actually read anything.  This form letter actually irritated me even more, so I wrote back

All I wanted was for someone to actually understand my issue.  The form letter that you sent did not do that for me….

The next day I got either a response to that, or perhaps a response to the in-room feedback form that I filled out

After careful review of the concerns you expressed in your message, first let me say how very sorry I am for the poor level of service you received. It is our goal, to provide only the highest level of customer service, for all of our guests, who choose to stay at one of our Hilton Worldwide hotels, and based on the details you provided in your message, we deeply regret that we have fallen short of that goal. Please be assured that we will be sharing your feedback with management.

Your loyalty to Hilton Worldwide is very important to us and we sincerely appreciate you taking the time to provide your feedback. These details allow us to assess the service we are providing, and in turn, will make us aware of opportunities for improvement. As a gesture of goodwill, 5,000 points has been posted to your Hilton HHonors account.

Still seems pretty form letter-y, but at this point I’m going to let it go.  I did not ask for the points and would have been fine without them if only someone from Hilton would have actually acknowledged my issue

(SEE ALSO: My top 7 most memorable hotel customer service experiences)

Ever had a similar hotel customer service situation?  What did you do?


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